


The Witcher in the Goblin City

by DameFrostyFace



Category: Labyrinth (1986), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Dimension Travel, Elves, Fae & Fairies, Fairies, Fantasy, Goblins, M/M, Magic, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:42:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23868445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameFrostyFace/pseuds/DameFrostyFace
Summary: Geralt of Rivia has been causing problems for Jareth, the Goblin King. The Labyrinth needs children to turn into goblins, and people to try and rescue them in order for Jareth's realm to continue existing. Unfortunately Geralt has been getting rather in the way of things, and Jareth is becoming intrigued.
Relationships: Geralt of Rivia/Jareth, Jareth/Geralt of Rivia
Comments: 9
Kudos: 18





	The Witcher in the Goblin City

**Author's Note:**

> This is crack that grew into like, a whole lore-heavy Thing. I am not sorry.

Frustration ate at the Goblin King’s brain. He was being repeatedly foiled by some upstart human who thought he was better than Jareth, King of the Goblins, Master of Magic! He stormed around the throne room, smashing any smashable that came within grabbing distances. Pots and plates flew, furniture was shattered further, and all of this would have been extremely upsetting were the room not already littered with the leftovers of his Majesty’s tantrums.  
Eventually he wore himself out, collapsing dramatically into the throne of bone and leather. A brave goblin Beetleglum got up the gumption to approach his Majesty and inquire into what had caused such a disturbance.  
“I am being THWARTED, Bigglesworth!” the king whined dramatically.  
“It’s Beetleglum, sire. Thwarted? Who could possibly thwart you?” Beetleglum began puttering about the room, quietly tidying the debris left behind by Jareth.  
Instead of replying, the King of the Goblins decided to monologue as was his way.  
“Do you know how this world lives, Babblegum? How we thrive, and continue, and bolster our number?” Beetleglum almost managed to reply that yes, he did, but Jareth just bulldozed over him. “New children had to be found and turned into Goblins, and people must come in after them! That is the way of things. We steal a child, someone appropriate finds out, they follow the baby in and I either finally find my spouse or they leave enough memories and dreams to keep the place running for a while! And now this… _person_ is mucking up everything.”  
He couldn’t trust the goblins to procreate on their own. Naturally, there was some reproduction done, like the goblin who germinated within the belly of a fish to explode out by the thousands only to discover none of them had been born with the natural ability to swim, or that nasty, strange goblin that could detach its member and leave it out on park benches to have lustful adventures*, but they were most inefficient.  
There were lots of worlds that Jareth utilized to get the necessary children, by hook or by crook, but this one produced children with rather potent nightmares. Troubled children made the best goblins, and he really shouldn’t have been surprised that it also produced someone who could make life difficult.  
Stealing children really was the most appropriate method. Jareth was a crude man, yes, but the goblins were cruder. He had some panache and a sense of the dramatic that many of the Goblin Kingdom simply could not get a grasp on. It wasn’t as if whoever was thwarting him had even gone through the appropriate channels to do so! How was he supposed to be anything but bored to tears if people didn’t chase their missing children through complex labyrinths based on their own personal trauma and memories? Absolute balderdash.  
The sound of Beetleglum’s sweeping brought him back to reality.  
“According to reports,” he drawled, “from Snatchers and Snaggers and also various Grabbers this new morsel was quite formidable. He’s killed seven of our number and could have killed more, but apparently stopped quite as soon as he realized Goblins can talk.”  
“This realm of mine needs the imagination of non-Goblin creatures to function.”  
The layout of the City, the realms and where they were, the shape of the Goblins, even his own appearance was dictated in part by the mind of humans present for a particular purpose. He hadn’t gotten to change much of himself since that frustrating girl some decades ago- at least he assumed it had been decades. Time went to strange places in the Labyrinth. In any part of the Fairy realms, really.  
He was starved for mortal imagination. No-one had been willing to make a wish or bargain with the Goblins in an age. They relied on people learning about them, the souls and hopes of creatures hooking into the realm of the Goblins, and creating a story to feed off of.  
There had been a woman who zipped in and out of his strange and winding home just long enough to leave a few leftover beasties in her wake, but she hadn’t stayed long enough to play any good games. The edges of the world were fraying, he could feel it. He would have to figure things out the old fashioned way if he wanted to keep everything from collapsing in on itself.  
Besides, Jareth was getting tired of looking like an aging musician. He was beautiful, there was no doubt about that, but it was time for a change.  
Jareth summoned a crystal ball and stared into it, re-playing the events his minions had told him of. Beedleglum paused his cleaning efforts to watch quietly from the corner, enraptured.  
Within the little glass sphere, he saw a man. Whoever it was hadn’t officially entered Jareth’s domain, but he’d landed in one of the little in-between pockets that linked the stranger’s reality to this one. He’d done this same thing every time. Some village would have a spike in snatchings and report goblin sightings, this person would show up and get the child back, and Jareth was left deeply frustrated. There was some odd magic about this stranger that Jareth was not fond of.  
Beedleglum approached the throne again. “If I may make some small suggestion, sire?”  
This little goblin, a short thing that barely came above Jareth’s knee and always wore a metal hat over his pointed nose, had been a part of Jareth’s court since he’d taken the throne… when and however that had been, he could no longer remember.  
“Speak, then.” He twirled the little glass ball, sending away the little picture of the white-haired stranger picking up a screaming toddler while kicking away one of the Snatchers.  
Beedleglum fiddled with his broom. “Well, sire, y’see, well I was thinkin’. We had such trouble with the girl a’fore because of underestimating and what-not. And you’re getting tired of the way things be-”  
“Yes yes, get on with it Buttergib!”  
“-YOUCOULD- and it’s Beetleglum sire-BRINGHIMHERE! LIKEYOUDIDWITHSARAH.” Beetleglum held up the broom in front of his face, waiting for a kick or a strike from his lord. It did not come, and instead, Jareth cried out:  
“SCRIBE!”  
The King of the Goblins snapped his fingers with a flourish, summoning a little goblin hardly bigger than a cat. In its two forepaws, it clutched a little lap desk for the writing of letters. The thing bowed as best it was able and proferred it to his king.  
“Majesty!” It bowed a little lower, twitching nose touching the flagstone floor. “Will you be writing yourself to-day, or shall your most humble servant and save you the trouble, my most glorious Goblin majesty?”  
Jareth said nothing but leaned down to pluck the little writing table from the goblin’s strange little clawed hands. Still nose to the floor the tiny goblin scrabbled backward out the door, thanking Jareth for his kindness and his beneficence, and, and, and, and until Jareth heard it fall down the stairs.  
Beetleglum followed silently once he was sure the coast was clear, taking his broom and cleaning pan with him. Jareth did not start writing until he was alone.  
“Idiots.”  
Having such short supply of victims had left his goblins and his realm rather comical, all things considered. Yes the Tallow Goblins kept their traditions alive by having their annual celebration wherein they would gut their own grannies to make couches out of them, and Goblin Knitting continued to be one of the most deadly sports known to any living being, but everything was so undeniably _twee_. It had been all well and good for a while, but they’d reached a point where Jareth’s memory was beginning to suffer. There had been a time Before the girl Sarah and the goblin-that-almost-was Toby, but he couldn’t really recall what that time before was. Bits and pieces would come through sometimes, but it never stayed. Every fear-riddled child would bring in a little spark of memory, but it always faded.  
When the children forgot who they had been, Jareth forgot as well. He needed someone strong and powerful to use, to ignite his power once more.  
Beetleglum’s suggestion had knocked loose a memory. There had been one moment when the interloper had set one foot into the Goblin realm. Not long ago he’d felt a sudden surge of power, just for a blink, and it had gone as quickly as it had come.  
One of the few survivors of that upstart samaritan had let Jareth know the surge coincided with two things: One, a Night Troll had gone on a rampage, which was unheard of as they tended to prefer quietly sneaking and just being Generally Menacing, and two, the Stranger had stepped into their little world for a split second.  
Jareth was determined to get to the bottom of things and, though he was loath to admit it, Beetleglum had made a very good suggestion.  
He took out a small crystal pen and ink that shimmered and glimmered more brilliantly than a dragon’s scale and began to write in a surprisingly harsh and spidery script. It would be a great risk to lure someone so pointy and dangerous into the Court of the Owls, but Jareth wasn’t averse to risks as long as he was following the rules. No, he’d behave as a monarch should, he’d do everything exactly as needed… and proceed to perform some underhanded sneakiness in the process.

It had started out as a fairly normal day at Corvo Bianco. Barnabas Basil rapped gently on the witcher’s door thrice to wake his master up, leaving satisfied when he heard the witcher’s creaking bones and groans as he rose from the softest bed money could buy. The room was pitch-dark without windows, which the witcher preferred. Working late hours rendered one’s sleep schedule very wonky indeed, and he preferred to simply take as much time to rest as the world allowed.  
He gestured at his bedside candle to ignite it, swinging his bare feet onto the polished floor. It was rare that Geralt woke up groggy, but this was apparently one of those mornings. He wiped the bleary sleep from his eyes and stumbled into his clothes and out to the breakfast table. All was as it should be, food hot and tasty, mail set off to the side. There wasn’t much of interest today it seemed, and he was grateful for that. He’d been dealing with an upsetting rash of child abductions all around Toussaint, almost all under the age of ten and most replaced with enchanted pieces of wood. He’d only saved seven out of possibly dozens and was encountering some new and strange creatures.  
It made him wish Vesimere was still alive to consult with him. Geralt would have gone to raid the library of Caer Moren if he wasn’t concerned about missing a call for help. He was supposed to be retired by now, but it seemed the world had other plans.  
Geralt finished his breakfast and flipped through his letters. There were only three pieces of mail today- an update from Ciri about solving a particularly complicated wraith’s curse, something from Dandelion inviting him to such and such a place, and finally an unlabelled envelope.  
When interrogated Barnabus just shrugged. “It is an important-looking letter on lovely stationery with a seal, which was left on your front doorstep. One can assume then that it is for you.”  
It was a beautiful looking letter. It had been folded in an old-fashioned way without an envelope. The paper was folded several times over and sealed to prevent it from popping open with a large and gaudy splatter of green wax. The seal was not one Geralt had seen before- a large flying own clutching a ball of some kind in its talons, caught in flight. Very intricate. He cracked the wax.

Dear Sir, to whome it may concern, which is the bastard causing such a ruckus,  
You ought to know me, but humans rarely do as they ought. You’re all a little like Goblins that way, and I admire those traits when they aren’t getting in my way-

Here there was a nasty splotch of ink that might’ve come from a cat, or a dog, or a small bundle of goblins falling from the ceiling into someone’s writing desk. Anyone’s guess, really. The note continued.

-You are spectacularly good at intercepting the natural order of things. I don’t know what stories your folk tell of the Goblins, but you’ve clearly got the wrong idea about us. As it stands you have robbed me of seven established citizens, and seven more potential ones. This simply will not do as our numbers are shrinking as it is. In accordance with the laws and rules and so forth, I’m afraid we will have to come to some arrangement in the near future.  
By opening this missive you have agreed to abide by the rules set forth after the Great Collapse of Good Governance and as such, we will be contacting you again in future with further instruction.  
Should you require my attention further, I am always a wish away.  
From the desk of His Majesty of the Court of Owls, Lord of the Labyrinth, Second in Line to the Raven Throne, Lord of Dreams, Eternal Wishmaster, Nightmare Maker, Nicnevin's Nephew-  
Jareth, the Goblin King

He read and re-read the letter several times.  
“... What the fuck is this?”


End file.
